FORT COLLINS — Tim Masters walked free Tuesday after serving almost a decade behind bars for a murder conviction his lawyers long argued had been based on little more than scary teenage scribblings.

Wearing neatly pressed JoS. A. Bank dress clothes and yellow tie purchased by his attorneys, the Fort Collins native stepped out a back door of the Larimer County Justice Center, waved to supporters and was sped by car to a reunion of more than 40 family members waiting for him at a private party four blocks away.

“It’s so great, I can’t begin to explain it — to see all my family and friends,” Masters, with moist eyes, told The Denver Post, describing his feelings of freedom. “It’s not having someone standing behind you telling you you have only one minute to say your goodbyes.”

Minutes earlier, at the request of special prosecutor and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, visiting Judge Joe Weatherby set aside Masters’ conviction for Peggy Hettrick’s 1987 murder, citing new DNA evidence that Quick said excludes Masters from the crime. The order brought Masters freedom — and one step closer to being Colorado’s first convict exonerated by DNA.

“I’m a little overwhelmed,” Masters said at a post-ruling news conference in the courthouse.

Larimer County District Attorney Larry Abrahamson, who agreed Tuesday that Masters is at least entitled to a new trial, must decide whether to move forward with such a trial on the murder charge still officially lodged against him.

“He’s walking tall”

That pending decision didn’t stop Masters from rejoicing after Weatherby accepted his not-guilty plea and granted his attorneys’ request to release him on a personal-recognizance bond. The moment he entered the Elks Lodge, where relatives from five states had gathered, he met a group hug. His big sister, Serena Castro, who he didn’t know would be there, was among the first to reach him.

With a looser swing to his shoulders, the 35-year-old man moved around a long buffet table festooned with a “Welcome Back” banner. He smiled and sampled fresh fried chicken, vegetables and chips.

“I can’t believe this,” he said.

Earlier, more than 100 spectators, including family, lawmakers, journalists and documentary filmmakers, crowded into the tiny courtroom, waiting for the moment the judge would sign the order. By 10:30 a.m., Weatherby made special arrangements to allow Masters’ relatives to occupy half the room next to the judge’s bench for the decision. During five years of hearings, they had earnestly filled the rows behind Masters’ legal team to show their support.

When Weatherby remarked that the sentence was vacated, Masters’ aunts and uncles didn’t suppress sniffles and silent gestures of triumph. Sitting behind the same table his attorneys have used off and on for five years to build their case, Masters managed a slight smile.

A quarter of his life was to be lost when authorities convicted him in 1999 of murdering Hettrick in 1987, when he was 15 years old.

Prosecutors charged that his violent drawings and writings were a rehearsal for the slaying, and a jury agreed in a conviction that withstood scrutiny all the way through a divided Colorado Supreme Court.

Although police had no physical evidence, they suggested that Masters’ failure to report Hettrick’s body when, on the morning of Feb. 11, 1987, he walked right past it in the field near his house was enough to make him a suspect.

A methodical challenge

Masters’ attorneys David Wymore and Maria Liu have methodically challenged the case used to convict Masters. They uncovered scores of documents that contradict the prosecution’s theory, battled to preserve evidence and then sought skin-cell DNA analysis in Holland that found none of Masters’ genetic material on Hettrick’s clothing.

Instead, the analysis found cells belonging to three other men, including one who had been considered and quickly dismissed as a suspect shortly after the murder.

“The reason we’re here right now is because Tim Masters is innocent,” Wymore said. “He remains and was a victim of an unfair and unjust conviction.”

Referring to the not-guilty plea that Masters submitted to the court, Wymore said, “I’m still in a pretrial mode. I’m going to ask first the prosecution to dismiss all charges against Tim Masters as quickly as possible. It’s an opportunity to do the right thing, to release him for good and forever from this taint.”

Abrahamson told The Post that he had set a meeting Tuesday afternoon to review the matter, but a spokeswoman later said, “No decision will be coming today.”

Wymore also alluded to the pain that Masters’ and Hettrick’s families have endured waiting for a resolution to the case.

“We’re sorry to reopen any wounds with the family of Peggy Hettrick,” Wymore said.

As for Masters’ clan: “They’ve endured anguish, humiliation and frustration over many years, but they have been the drive behind our ability to keep moving forward.”

Masters then stepped to the lectern, acknowledging he was nervous. “. . . Bear with me. I want to thank my family and friends who’ve stayed with me all these years. I want to thank the media, . . . and that’s about all I have to say.”

Then, he said, “I love this suit and tie,” eliciting laughter from the audience. “I want to go see my family.”

All walks of life

What could be Masters’ last day in court meant different things to the more than 100 people from all walks of life in the room — lawmakers, lawyers, scientists, relatives, professors. The need for stronger evidence laws, given Masters’ fight to preserve evidence and obtain DNA testing. The need for closure — if the charges are dropped, for example, the case again turns cold.

“With Tim’s apparent innocence, how can we as a state confidently say this is an isolated case,” said state Rep. Cheri Jahn, who wants Masters to testify at upcoming hearings to pass laws to make it a duty for authorities to preserve evidence. “We need to do more to make sure the system is just.”

No one from Hettrick’s family was in evidence at the courthouse Tuesday.

Her uncle, who had attended some of the hearings, was not available for comment.

Outside the courtroom, after Masters was ordered free, his aunt Rose Lamb and other family members released a bundle of balloons into the sky: nine green ones, representing every year Masters has worn a green prison suit, and 20 white ones, representing every year Hettrick’s death has gone unsolved.

Twenty miles away, at the Loveland Cemetery, her gravesite was covered with crusted snow. No footprints. No flowers.

Chronology: The Tim Masters case

Feb. 11, 1987: The body of Peggy Hettrick is found in a Fort Collins field. Later that day, Fort Collins police pull then-15-year-old Tim Masters out of Fort Collins High School and question him about the woman’s death.

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